# Replication Materials for "Political Elites' Partisan Beliefs About Climate Change"

**Authors:** Alexander C. Furnas, Timothy M. LaPira, Salil D. Benegal

**Journal:** *Environmental Research Communications*

## Overview

This repository contains replication data and code for "Political Elites' Partisan Beliefs About Climate Change." The paper uses the 2020 Survey of Political Elites and Public Servants (SPEPS) to document partisan divides in climate change beliefs among over 3,500 U.S. political elites—including elected officials, staffers, regulators, lobbyists, and policy professionals.

## Files

### Data

| File | Description |
|------|-------------|
| `Data/EliteGWData.rds` | De-identified survey response data for the climate module of SPEPS. Primary dataset for all main analyses. |
| `Data/public_opinion_output.csv` | Predicted probabilities from public opinion models (ANES and Pew). Output of the Stata .do files, read by the R replication script to produce Figure 3. |
| `Data/2020_Survey_of_Political_Elites_Instrument.docx` | Full survey instrument for the 2020 SPEPS. |

### Code

| File | Description |
|------|-------------|
| `Data/EliteClimateScienceOpinionReplication.R` | Main replication script (R). Produces all figures and regression tables reported in the paper and supplementary information. |
| `2020ANES_tempsrisen_est_0929.do` | Stata script for ANES 2020 public opinion analysis (Figure 3a, Table S12). **Requires 2020 ANES Time Series data** (see note below). |
| `pewanalysis_0929.do` | Stata script for Pew ATP Wave 67 public opinion analysis (Figure 3b, Table S13). **Requires Pew ATP Wave 67 data** (see note below). |
| `BalanceAndDescriptives.R` | Survey balance checks and descriptive statistics comparing respondents to the full sampling frame. **Requires additional data files not included in this deposit** (see note below). |

## Software Requirements

- **R** (developed with R 4.x)
- **Stata** (for ANES and Pew public opinion analyses)
- Required R packages:

```r
install.packages(c(
  "tidyverse", "weights", "ggridges", "spatstat", "cowplot",
  "sjPlot", "sjstats", "modelsummary", "car", "fixest",
  "gtsummary", "xtable", "questionr", "survey",
  "flextable", "officer", "scales"
))
```

## Reproducing the Results

1. Open R and set the working directory to this repository's root folder.
2. Run the main replication script:

```r
source("Data/EliteClimateScienceOpinionReplication.R")
```

This will produce the following outputs in the repository root:

### Output → Paper Mapping

| Output File | Paper Element |
|-------------|---------------|
| `Fig1A.pdf` | Figure 1(a): Elite climate beliefs by party |
| `Fig1D_2.pdf` | Figure 1(b,c): Climate conspiracy density plots and ECDF |
| `GWRegPlotgrid.pdf` | Figure 2: Regression coefficient plots (AGW and conspiracy models) |
| `AGWSubgroup_modelplot.pdf` | Figure S1: Occupational-category-specific AGW model estimates |
| `GWCSubgroup_modelplot.pdf` | Figure S2: Occupational-category-specific conspiracy model estimates |
| `ClimateRegModels.docx` | Tables S8, S10: Full LPM regression results |
| `LogitClimateRegModels.docx` | Tables S8, S10: Logit regression results |
| `AGW_Anova.docx` | Table S9: ANOVA for AGW model |
| `GWC_Anova.docx` | Table S11: ANOVA for conspiracy model |
| `SubgroupAGWRegressionStrongPartisanFtests.csv` | Table S14: F-tests for AGW subgroup models |
| `SubgroupGWCRegressionStrongPartisanFtests.csv` | Table S15: F-tests for conspiracy subgroup models |
| `SI_Table1.tex` | Table S1 (partial): Weighted group counts |
| `SI_Table2.tex` | Table S1 (partial): Sample demographics |
| `PublicOpinionClimate.pdf` | Figure 3: Public opinion predicted probabilities (ANES and Pew) |
| `EC_log.txt` | Console output log including weighted chi-square tests, t-tests, and ECDF values reported in text |

Table 1 in the main text (weighted percentages by party) is computed within the script and printed to `EC_log.txt`.

## Note on Public Opinion Data (ANES and Pew)

The Stata scripts `2020ANES_tempsrisen_est_0929.do` and `pewanalysis_0929.do` produce the public opinion models underlying Figure 3 and Tables S12–S13. These scripts require proprietary datasets not included in this deposit:

- **2020 ANES Time Series Study** — Available from [https://electionstudies.org/data-center/2020-time-series-study/](https://electionstudies.org/data-center/2020-time-series-study/)
- **Pew American Trends Panel Wave 67** — Available from [https://www.pewresearch.org/dataset/american-trends-panel-wave-67/](https://www.pewresearch.org/dataset/american-trends-panel-wave-67/)

The output of these scripts (`Data/public_opinion_output.csv`) is included in the deposit, so the main R replication script can produce Figure 3 without running the Stata scripts.

## Note on Balance and Descriptive Statistics

`BalanceAndDescriptives.R` produces Tables S2–S7 (balance diagnostics, top titles/organizations by sector). This script requires three additional data files not included in this deposit because they contain personally identifiable information from the survey sampling frame:

- `FullContactData.csv` — Full sampling frame contact data
- `CleanedDeIdentifiedSPEPS02022021.csv` — Full survey responses with email-based identifiers
- `ID_CrosswalkSPEPS02022021.csv` — Crosswalk linking survey responses to sampling frame records

Contact the authors for access to these files.

## License

See the Harvard Dataverse terms of use for this dataset.

## Citation

Furnas, A. C., LaPira, T. M., & Benegal, S. D. Political Elites' Partisan Beliefs About Climate Change. *Environmental Research Communications*.
